It’s all wrapped up for Christmas

Nearly half of us dread the idea of wrapping Christmas presents - a Royal Mail survey has revealed.

And this Saturday (December 19) a third of those polled say they will tackle the ticky-tape and wrestling with the wrapping paper.

The top three gripes around present wrapping are: it takes too much time (52%), I always forget wrapping paper, tape or labels (41%) and the gifts never look as special as I want (27%).

The survey, which questioned 2,000 people across the UK, found that people spend an average of one hour and 14 minutes wrapping gifts, with women spending 12 minutes longer.

Christmas Eve brings more than just mulled wine for nearly one in 10 (seven per cent) – it signals a mad dash to wrap presents. Men are the biggest culprits (eight per cent) compared to women (four per cent) when it comes to waiting until the last moment. Shockingly a further eight per cent of men say that they never wrap presents.

Scots plan to buy or have bought, on average, 12 presents for others this Christmas and interestingly no Scots surveyed said they left their wrapping until Christmas morning.

More than half of all Scots who responed to the surveyed (52%) said they usually enjoy wrapping Christmas presents – the highest result in the UK.

Stephen Agar, managing director of Consumer and Network Access at Royal Mail, said: “With Christmas just over a week away, it should be a time to celebrate rather than panic. The festive period is our busiest time of year so we know that preparation is the key.”